BigGantt vs. BigPicture. Obvious choice?

It’s seemingly pretty obvious: BigGantt is a Gantt chart and BigPicture is a Gantt chart + roadmaps, resources, risks and more. Both are apps for Jira and it’s usually BigPicture that better suits large organizations. Ok, so can I finish reading here? Warnining: there is more to the BigPicture vs. BigGantt battle.

Things begin to complicate when you realize that companies of today – and perhaps your own organization too – increasingly embrace Agile. If you deal with Scrum, SAFe® or you divide your work into Sprints, it’s likely that you need more than just BigGantt. So even though BigPicture, in theory, suits large companies, it turns out that it’s also good for those who are agile. And apparently the majority of organizations that use Jira, have a mixed agile/waterfall project environment. So the truth is: most of those undecided, even smaller enterprises, should go with BigPicture.

Nevertheless, let’s go deeper into details.

Table 1: BigGantt vs. BigPicture

BigGantt

BigPicture

Roadmapping (planning) module

Dependency board– covers a few upcoming sprints; has dependency arrows between tasks; recommended by SAFe®

Gantt chart module

Work Breakdown Structure

Risks module

Resources module

resource pane in the bottom part of the Gantt chart. It has capacity planning and non-working days feature, but workload&holiday plans and skills are absent.

Extensive, standalone resource module with capacity planning, skills, workload&holiday plans. That simplified resource pane at the bottom of Gantt chart is also present in BigPicture. Documentation

Teams module

Reporting (quickly check how much work remains to be done)

For who?

Theoretical client (very roughly, really)

a project manager with Microsoft Project background who needs no revolution, but values the ergonomics of Jira

Is the Gantt chart module identical in BigPicture and BigGantt?

No. The Gantt chart module slightly differs BigPicture vs. BigGantt.

Since BigPicture has the whole roadmapping module, and that thing is absent from BigGantt, the Gantt chart in BigPicture is capable of displaying sprints and tasks from the roadmap. The former are visible as green and violet vertical bars on the below picture; the latter – as the concentration of tasks marked with green marker.

Other than that the Gantt chart is identical in BigPicture and BigGantt. It has work breakdown structure, or WBS (the left part of the below image), unlimited hierarchy of tasks, dependencies between tasks (those arrows loved by PMs), baselines, markers, milestones, dragging&dropping as well as sync and re-sync with Jira, to name a few.

Pictured is the slightly more developed Gantt chart of BigPicture. The vertical violet and green bars stand for cadences of the roadmap sprints. And the densely populated area marked with green marker contains tasks imported from the BigPicture roadmap. Other than that the Gantt chart module is identical in BigGantt and BigPicture.

Can I turn off selected modules in BigPicture?

Yes. For simplicity and to ease the learning curve you can hide selected BigPicture modules, on a project basis.

You might, for instance, hide the resource module in your “Business Development” program/project, once you’ve decided you wouldn’t manage resources in that project. Or, in your “Build a new warehouse” project, you might turn off all the modules except for the Gantt chart to merely supervise external contractors who would be taking over the construction site one by one.